Steelhands - Jaida Jones [61]
I snorted, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Same as always, it’d seem. ’Versity’s started some new program that takes kids off the farms and crams ’em into our schools, so that’s been going about as well as you’d imagine.” I remembered the girl who’d asked if our pants caught on fire midflight, but she was just about the lone bright spot in a dark sky of children who’d been taught how to count cows and what to do when the crops came back poorly and not much else.
They were useful things to know, for certain, but it didn’t mean the students were going to have an easy time of it picking up the basics of strategy.
“Oh dear,” Luvander said, taking in the look on my face. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked. Should I put on some tea? Or—I can’t even remember—are you more of a coffee man?”
“Tea’s fine,” I said. Too much coffee set all my nerves to sounding like the Airman’s bell, and I’d had enough of that at the Airman, not to mention the ’Versity.
I couldn’t even count on the fingers of both hands the number of times I’d jerked to attention when the signal for class starting or ending rang out through the lecture room. It was a good thing my pupils were so blissfully unaware of everything or else they’d’ve seen me start for the door every time.
“Excellent,” Luvander said, scampering away like an overgrown grasshopper dressed in Miranda’s finest. “Tea’s all I have, anyway.” He disappeared into the back of his shop, hollering out to me like we were back in the air. “I hope you’re all right with black tea, of course. The latest fad is all this green powder and leaves they’ve been bringing over the Cobalts as a gesture of goodwill, but you know—it’s the funniest thing. I can’t bring myself to drink it. What do you think?”
I didn’t think that was so funny, myself, but that was probably me being old-fashioned again. Not willing to move on with the times and see my world changing.
“It smells like gunpowder,” Luvander added, popping his head back around the corner. “Isn’t that strange? Why anyone would want to drink something that looks like algae scraped off the docks and smells like the sky in wartime is beyond me. I suppose that’s why I have such trouble with it. Welcome,” he trilled, as the bell over the door jingled merrily behind me. “It breaks my heart to tell you this, but I simply must inform you that we are actually closed for the evening. Please come back another time, remind me of my inhospitality, and I’ll see if I can’t manage a discount for you.”
“Oh,” said a soft little voice that hadn’t hardened itself up any since I’d last heard it. “I … Did I get the time wrong? Or were we supposed to meet somewhere else?”
“Hey, Balfour,” I said, just so he wouldn’t take Luvander too seriously and let himself be chased away. “Took you long enough, but the time’s still almost right.”
“No,” Luvander said, stalking out from the back and around his shop counter. “Not Balfour.” He came right up to the man and stared at him, eyes bulging like a dead fish’s did on the chopping block. “No, you look very much like him, but I’m sorry to inform you that my friend Balfour is no longer with us. If he was, you see, he would have no excuse—none whatsoever—for having taken so long to come and visit my shop. And me. What a cruel prank to play on a man, especially a veteran hero of war. Entirely without taste.”
“Hello, Luvander,” Balfour said. He was wringing his hands a little, and I could see that he’d taken to wearing gloves again. Probably because he didn’t like people staring at what currently passed for his hands—an ironic touch that didn’t slip my notice. He definitely wasn’t used to them yet, though